Of all the improvements you can make to your home, there are none better than working to make it more eco-friendly. After all, these improvements have benefits that stretch far beyond helping to make your home more livable. Eco-friendly improvements are also better for the planet and, in many cases, better for your wallet. Solar panels provide effectively free electricity after the payback period has passed, while upcycling your furniture will extend its lifespan and cut back on the amount of money you have to spend on replacements. So yes, there’s much to love about eco-friendly home upgrades.
There are a million and one ways to make your home more environmentally friendly, but some strategies are better than others. In this post, we’re going to focus on the ones that have the biggest impact on both the environment and on your wallet. Let’s get started.
Buy Second-Hand
You can go a long way towards improving your carbon footprint by simply avoiding purchasing items. After all, most people’s environmental impact comes from their simple desire to buy products.
Of course, it’s not realistic to think that you can close your wallet completely. You’ll need items for your home from time to time. One way to get the items you need, save money, and save the planet is to buy second-hand. Some items — such as mattresses and couches — should be bought new, but there’s a surprisingly long list of items that you can confidently buy used, including hard-surface furniture, lamps, microwaves, and decorative items.
And Revive What You Can
You’ll need to buy replacements for your furniture and other household items from time to time, but when that time will be is within your control, to a degree. Many people assume that they need to buy a new piece of furniture when it experiences a tear or replace their appliance when it begins to show signs that its performance capacity is decreasing. Before getting out your wallet — and using some of the earth’s resources — it’s best to see if you can bring it back to life. You can normally upcycle furniture with a little bit of know-how, which won’t only extend its lifespan, but can also make it look better than it did beforehand. For your home electricals, it’s best to check online to see if there’s a solution. You may be able to restore it to its former glory just by following along with a YouTube tutorial video.
Install Solar Panels
You could take every other suggestion on this list on board, but ultimately, if your home is still getting its energy from traditional sources, then there’s an upper limit to how eco-friendly your home will be. To make a radical improvement, you’ll need to look at changing how you power your home. For that, there’s nothing better than solar PV panels, which are not only powerful enough to provide your home with sustainable electricity but can also help you save hundreds on your energy bills each year. The payback period for solar panels is around 7 – 12 years, at which point you’ll benefit from essentially free electricity — and given that solar panel systems can last for more than 25 years, that can result in significant savings.
Energy-Efficient Appliances
In most cases, the best way to save the planet and save money is to avoid making purchases, but there are some exceptions to that rule. If your home appliances are older, then it’ll be better to invest in replacements. That is because home appliances have become a lot more energy efficient in recent years, and if you’re using appliances that are 10+ years old, you’re probably using a lot more energy than necessary every time you use them. Just make sure to check the appliance’s energy credentials before purchasing.
Start a Vegetable Garden
Starting a vegetable garden in your backyard offers a wide range of benefits, including improving your physical and mental well-being. But there are also environmental advantages to working to produce your own vegetables. For one thing, it simply saves you from having to purchase vegetables from the supermarket, which have usually travelled quite a long way from where they were grown. Your own vegetable garden also just nurtures a closer relationship with nature, which means it’ll be more likely that you and your family act in ways that benefit the natural world. Finally, those vegetables you produce will be delicious, a lot tastier than store-bought veg.
Harvest Rainwater
If you’ve started a vegetable garden, then why not take your eco-credentials to the next level by harvesting rainwater? It rains a lot in northern Europe, making this one of the easiest ways to cut down on water usage (and reduce water bills). You can use harvested rainwater for watering plants, washing your car, and flushing the toilet.
Read the Ingredients
There are eco-friendly home products and not-so-eco-friendly home products. Reading the ingredients to see if the product contains any toxins is an effective way to protect the planet and improve your home’s air quality. Try to avoid paints that contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and look at all-natural cleaning products. Plus, it’s just nice to have items in your home that you know won’t release nasty chemicals every time you spray them.
Be OK With a Little Discomfort
Our last suggestion is one that most people would prefer not to hear, but it can make a big difference to your home’s environmental impact. Being OK with a little discomfort can do wonders for your home’s eco-friendly credentials, since it’ll mean that you don’t always need to crank up the heating or air conditioning at the first sign of a slightly uncomfortable temperature. Nobody wants to be overly hot, but we also don’t have to be at the perfect temperature all the time. The same principle applies to the cold — at home, the goal should be to avoid being cold, not trying to be toasty and warm. Even turning your thermostat down a few degrees can make a huge difference.
